Scottish Executive

Birds

Rob Gibson (Highlands and Islands) (SNP): To ask the Scottish Executive what information it has in respect of the decline in numbers of black grouse and ptarmigan.

Allan Wilson: The last UK survey on black grouse was in 1995-96 when it was estimated that there were 4,960 lekking male black grouse in Scotland. The next UK survey will be conducted in 2005-06.

  Further information on the black grouse and the associated conservation efforts can be found on the UK Biodiversity Action Plan for black grouse website: www.blackgrouse.info

  In 1990 the ptarmigan population was estimated to be 10,000 breeding pairs. The 1988-91 British Trust for Ornithology New Atlas of Breeding Birds found that the distribution of ptarmigan in Scotland had not changed substantially since the previous Atlas Survey in 1968-1971. The Atlas Survey for 2008-2011 will be the next official survey of this species.

Council Tax

Brian Adam (Aberdeen North) (SNP): To ask the Scottish Executive who has the authority to grant zero rating for council tax and water charges and what the criteria are for granting such rating.

Mr Andy Kerr: Properties exempt from council tax and water charges, and categories of individual disregarded for the purpose of calculating council tax and water charges, are set out in statute.

  Properties that are wholly occupied by qualifying students and those wholly occupied by the severely mentally impaired are exempt from council tax and water charges.

  Individuals disregarded for the purpose of council tax and water charges are listed below:

  Persons in detention other than for the non-payment of a fine or on remand.

  Persons with severe mental impairment.

  Apprentices earning no more than £163 per week.

  Students.

  Student nurses.

  Youth training trainees aged under 25.

  Patients in homes.

  Care workers who are employed, work for at least 24 hours per week and receive no more than £36.

  Care workers who provide care or support for an average of 35 hours per week to a person who is in receipt of a qualifying benefit and who is not their spouse or child under the age of 18.

  Members of international headquarters and defence organisations designated under the International Headquarters and Defence Organisations Act 1964.

  Diplomats with full and partial diplomatic status.

  Members of religious communities who have no personal income.

  School leavers aged under 20 for whom child benefit is payable.

  Members of visiting forces who are neither British citizens nor ordinarily resident in the United Kingdom.

  Spouse and dependents of non-British students who are prevented from taking paid employment or from claiming benefits by virtue of the rules of their entry into the UK.

Education

Robin Harper (Lothians) (Green): To ask the Scottish Executive when it will issue definitive guidance to education authorities on the circumstances in which parents may choose to educate their children at home, following the end of the consultation process on the revised draft guidance, Guidance on the circumstance in which parents may choose to educate their children at home , in October 2003 and in light of any inconsistency in the treatment of home education across Scotland.

Peter Peacock: We hope to issue the guidance this month.

Fire Service

Frances Curran (West of Scotland) (SSP): To ask the Scottish Executive what the current salary is of Strathclyde Fire Brigade’s Fire Master.

Cathy Jamieson: The Scottish Executive has no role in determining the pay of any Fire Service personnel. The National Joint Council for Principal Officers of Local Authorities’ Fire Brigades negotiates the pay of chief fire officers and the current national agreement sets minimum salaries based on population bands. It is a matter for local authority employers, in this case Strathclyde Joint Fire Board, to determine whether to fix the salary for their chief officer at or above the minimum level provided for under this agreement.

Health

Mr David Davidson (North East Scotland) (Con): To ask the Scottish Executive what plans it has to expand the provision of undergraduate education for health professionals to meet the needs of its legislative programme.

Malcolm Chisholm: The Executive undertakes a number of actions to ensure that the output from our further and higher education institutions is appropriate to the workforce needs of NHSScotland. For example: the annual student nurse intake planning exercise undertakes this responsibility in respect of nurses and midwives and has resulted in year on year increases to the number of student nurses and midwives in training; we have provided funding for additional student places in areas such as radiography and speech and language therapy, and are working in partnership with higher education institutions, NHSScotland and the Scottish Higher Education Funding Council to support more therapists in training; steps have been taken to increase dental undergraduate places to secure an increased annual output of 130 dental graduates; and a review of basic medical education in Scotland has been commissioned and is expected to make recommendations shortly on numbers of medical students.

  In general terms, the process for assessing the undergraduate intakes and outputs required to supply NHSScotland with the many different types of healthcare professionals it needs is complex. It is closely linked to issues of workforce planning and development, including retention and recruitment strategies and the development of multi-professional teams, and also to the alternative routes to training that may be available. I therefore also refer Mr Davidson to the answer given to question S2W-6002 on 5 March 2004.

Health

Mr David Davidson (North East Scotland) (Con): To ask the Scottish Executive what it estimates the manpower requirements will be for the professions of medicine, pharmacy, dentistry and optometry for each of the next 10 years, broken down by NHS board area, to meet the needs of its plans for the future delivery of healthcare services.

Malcolm Chisholm: The developing regional workforce networks and their constituent NHS boards will advise on future staffing requirements in their areas in response to the demand for services they are responsible for providing at regional and local level. Based on this advice, the National Workforce Committee will make recommendations on the future size and shape of the NHS workforce in Scotland.

  The Executive aims to develop its first national workforce plan by the end of March, to coincide with the establishment of the new boards throughout Scotland. The plan will provide a comprehensive position statement and scenarios for the future. The new boards, the regional service and workforce planning networks will be able to draw on the national plan to inform their planning processes in the longer term and, in turn, they will inform further development of the national plan. In addition, the Executive will be better able to ensure that the supply of staff matches the service's demand for them.

Health

Mr David Davidson (North East Scotland) (Con): To ask the Scottish Executive, in light of the findings of the report by the Scottish Public Service Ombudsman of an investigation into a complaint against Grampian University Hospital NHS Trust, published on 3 February 2004, whether it will directly support orthodontal services in Grampian and, if not, whether it will amend the Arbuthnott allocation formula to ensure that NHS Grampian is allocated sufficient funding to ensure that similar complaints are avoided in future.

Malcolm Chisholm: The Arbuthnott formula determines the increase in boards’ financial allocations on the basis of an overall assessment of relative needs, taking into account the influences of demography, deprivation and remoteness. The planning and provision of services are matters for NHS boards within those resources, national guidelines and overall priorities. The Ombudsman rejected the complaint and indicated that this was a resource allocation issue for the trust.

Health

Alasdair Morgan (South of Scotland) (SNP): To ask the Scottish Executive whether it has any plans to arrange for clinical trials of the anti-dementia drug memantine (Ebixa).

Malcolm Chisholm: The Executive has no plans to arrange for clinical trials of memantine (Ebixa).

Health

John Farquhar Munro (Ross, Skye and Inverness West) (LD): To ask the Scottish Executive what action it is taking to ensure that doctors are made aware of the symptoms of lyme disease so that early diagnosis can take place.

Malcolm Chisholm: The Scottish Executive is not planning to take any specific action to raise awareness of lyme disease among doctors. There is already guidance available from the Scottish Centre for Infection and Environmental Health (SCIEH) on lyme disease which covers issues such as health risks and the principles of good practice (guidance note 18). This is available on the SCIEH website, to which all practitioners have access and is widely distributed to environmental health officers and public health consultants.

Health

John Farquhar Munro (Ross, Skye and Inverness West) (LD): To ask the Scottish Executive whether any research has been undertaken into the population of animal ticks capable of spreading lyme disease.

Malcolm Chisholm: The Scottish Executive is not aware of any research relating to the population of animal ticks capable of spreading Lyme disease.

Health

Jackie Baillie (Dumbarton) (Lab): To ask the Scottish Executive whether it will ensure that clinicians are involved in the process of regional planning at NHS board level.

Malcolm Chisholm: The Scottish Executive’s guidance to NHS boards on regional planning makes it clear that it is vital to engage senior clinical staff in the process. I fully expect that the need to involve clinicians will be part of the framework for regional planning currently being drawn together by NHS board Chief Executives.

NHS Waiting Lists

Linda Fabiani (Central Scotland) (SNP): To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answer to question S2W-4807 by Malcolm Chisholm on 19 January 2004, whether it will publish the mean along with the median figures in each future release of waiting list statistics.

Malcolm Chisholm: I refer the member to the answer given to the question S2W-4812 on 19 January 2004 which is available on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/webapp/wa.search

  ISD Scotland have no plans to include an arithmetic mean of waiting times on their website, Scottish Health Statistics.

National Health Service

Brian Adam (Aberdeen North) (SNP): To ask the Scottish Executive what the criteria are for trade union recognition for representation and negotiation in the NHS and whether such criteria will be reviewed following the Agenda for Change process.

Malcolm Chisholm: The criteria for trade union recognition are set out in the Employment Relations Act 1999 in Sections 1,5,6,25 and Schedule 1 of the provisions of the Act.

  For the purposes of national collective bargaining in the NHS, the General Whitley Council (GWC) determines the trade unions and staff organisations that are recognised for representation and negotiation in the NHS.

  The staff side organisations with national recognition are set down by the GWC and are listed in Appendix B to the GWC Handbook.

  As part of the proposed agreement on Agenda for Change, an NHS staff council will be established to replace the relevant functions of the GWC and the separate functional Whitley Councils. This council will have overall responsibility for the new pay system.

  The staff side organisations with current national recognition for the purposes of the staff council are listed in Section 12.13 of the Agenda for Change agreement.

National Health Service

Brian Adam (Aberdeen North) (SNP): To ask the Scottish Executive what the criteria are for trade union participation in health partnership fora at local and national level.

Malcolm Chisholm: At a national level, we have established the Scottish Partnership Forum and the Human Resources Forum. This is a tripartite arrangement between the Scottish Executive Health Department, NHSScotland employers and trade unions/professional organisations. They are formally constituted with an equal number of places offered to the Scottish Executive Health Department/NHSScotland employers and the STUC affiliated trade unions and professional organisations. The mechanism and process for selection of trade union/professional organisation representatives on these national fora is determined and undertaken by the trade unions/professional organisations.

  Each NHS system has developed and agreed locally a partnership agreement which sets out the membership of the Area Partnership Forum. Membership is drawn from recognised trade unions and professional organisations and management representatives. The number of seats is a matter for local determination. It is for staff side organisations to determine the chair and this individual is automatically nominated as the employee director for the system subject to ministerial approval of their appointment to the NHS board.

  The only real criteria required of all members of local and national fora is an agreement that all parties will work together towards improving the service provided by the NHS, to both patients and staff, and that all decisions on its future will be made through genuine partnership working.

National Health Service

Jackie Baillie (Dumbarton) (Lab): To ask the Scottish Executive, in light of the increase in salaries arising from the new consultants’ contract, what the advantages are of such a contract.

Malcolm Chisholm: The new consultants’ contract provides a number of specific advantages, not least a considerable increase in the contracted time devoted to direct patient care, up from 21 hours per week to at least 30 hours per week for each full-time consultant. The overarching benefit to be derived from the contract is to provide NHSScotland with the tools to more effectively manage consultants’ time and workload. The job planning process allows managers, for the first time, to critically examine and transparently timetable all of a consultant’s activities, and to agree how consultants’ working commitments and practices can best contribute to NHS objectives. In this way managers will be able to explicitly and more effectively manage consultant activity in order to secure the capacity they require to improve services to patients and, where appropriate, take forward the re-design of services.

Smoking

Dr Elaine Murray (Dumfries) (Lab): To ask the Scottish Executive whether it has issued guidance to NHS boards to discontinue the prescription of nicotine patches to people who wish to stop smoking and, if so, what the reasons are for such guidance.

Malcolm Chisholm: No such guidance has been issued by the Executive.

Water Supply

Brian Adam (Aberdeen North) (SNP): To ask the Scottish Executive how much funding it has made available to upgrade private water supplies to enable compliance with new EU regulations or connection to public water supplies; who is responsible for the disbursal of such funds, and how owners of private water supplies can apply for funds.

Allan Wilson: Currently, funding to upgrade private water supplies is available from a number of sources.  Housing Improvement Grants can be awarded to households for a range of purposes including the upgrade of the water supply. Citizens wishing to apply for a housing improvement grant should contact their local authority.

  In Scottish Water’s current investment programme, some £41 million has been made available for investment to address development constraints and provide first time connection in rural areas. Ministers will give final approval to the allocation of this money later this year. Information on households requiring connection to the public water supply has been provided to Scottish Water by local authority environmental health officers.

  Finally, the Scottish Executive aims to bring into force a dedicated private water supplies improvement grant scheme to assist citizens and business to comply with new private water supply regulations. Proposals on this matter will be subject to full public consultation, planned for later this year.

Weather Forecasts

Cathy Peattie (Falkirk East) (Lab): To ask the Scottish Executive whether it has considered funding free mountain weather forecasts, as currently being trialled in Snowdonia and the Brecon Beacons.

Mr Frank McAveety: We are aware of the pilot weather forecasting service recently introduced into Wales and have asked the Mountaineering Council of Scotland to monitor and evaluate its operation during its trial period. We will then consider whether a similar service might be introduced in Scotland.